Business Models | Jobs Blog

Free Irish Jobs Sites

There is more than a ten of Irish jobs sites that advertise themselves as free Irish jobs sites. Advertising the jobs is free. Some of them would then try to charge if a recruiter or employer tries to engage with the job candidate, and most of them would just send the job applications and CVs for free to the employers as well.

There are a number of business models here – where if an employer wants’ a extra exposure on the front page, he can pay for that. Or banner advertisement are available, or in most case Google AdSense is there on the site to monetise the web site traffic.

Job Aggregators would even go a step further, where not only that the job publishing is free, but they will also take the jobs directly from your job site for you.

Then there is a few dozen Irish jobs sites that are not really advertising that the job advertising is free, but if you ask nicely, you can get your jobs advertised on them for free with no problem. Those are usually smaller and niche web sites that cannot attract enough web site traffic to be able to charge for it. They usually start with a Free Trial for job advertising for all the employers and recruiters. Then they hope the jobs advertised will build the required amount of job seekers on visiting the site that the job board owners will be able to sell that traffic later on. When that does not happen, and it doesn’t in most cases, the pay per click advertising is usually brought on in the form of Google AdWords to try to keep the job hunters visiting the jobs site. When the budget for that is gone – the job site usually turns silently in the free job board – with some sort of monetising the web site traffic like Google AdSense.

The majority of the Irish Jobs sites end up in this category of free jobs sites – simply because they cannot attract enough job hunters to be attractive enough to the job hunters.

How to find where to advertise your jobs for free?

Search for jobs in Google. When you see a web site with no physical address and just a form to fill to contact them, or a mobile phone – you just found a free jobs site. The exception might be only the site owner is still finding it hard to realise that his jobs site is not really head on with the top Irish jobs sites (as he hoped for) but silently become a free Irish Jobs site.

Well the recession does not seem to have any impact on the creativity of the Irish future jobs board owners. TalentTank.ie is the latest proof of that. While some of the largest ones are changing their business models drastically:

Jobs.ie adopted Google AdSense advertisements, and is selling pop under traffic (those popup windows that open behind the main window with some unrelated (usually dodgy) web site

IrishJobs.ie selling pop under traffic

RecruitIreland.com giving it away for free to any employer to advertise

TalentTank.ie has a quite different business model from a day one. This is what they say about themselves:
In essence, TalentTank.ie is a web-based platform that provides both Individuals and Employers to quite simply make a difference in this current down-turn.

TalentTank.ie will also explain the details:

Talented Individuals register with TalentTank.ie to offer their talents and skills for free, for a couple of hours or days a week for a specified period, so as to demonstrate their skill sets. Employers in turn register with TalentTank.ie to avail of this free pool of resources in turn driving productivity with out any additional cost over-head.

Basically it is a free labour for the Employers. As TalentTank.ie say – ‘no cost’.

Thereafter, having demonstrated their net worth to their Employer colleagues, Individuals then have the opportunity to onward and directly network with potential Employers, in effect bypassing costly recruitment agencies and enabling a quicker and more cost effective route to employment for both parties.

Recruitment agencies are being bypassed to avoid their cost as well. So Employers do not have to pay for the staff or the recruitment.

This initiative will allow Employers become more competitive in terms of reducing labour costs and driving skills-base, which if adopted cross sectors and industries, will contribute significantly towards establishing a foundation for recovery. And of course, as an Employer’s business grows, so to will the need for new Employees.

Employers are getting staff and the recruitment of the staff for free so they will be more profitable and as ThinkTank.ie page say – establish the foundation for the economic recovery. Staff and recruitment costs written off profit margins shoot up, and Ireland becomes competitive again. The roar of the Celtic Tiger can be heard running back towards us!

Or did I not get it right somehow? Do you get it?